The Rams’ bad injury luck continued unabated on Monday, as head coach Sean McVay announced that All-Pro wide receiver Puka Nacua is likely headed to injured reserve after suffering an MCL-PCL sprain to his right knee in Sunday’s win over the Washington Commanders.
Nacua, who is also dealing with turf toe, suffered the injury on the Rams’ final offensive play of the game in which McVay called a jet sweep on third-and-11. Nacua was hit hard after his 5-yard gain and came up slowly.
“I’m kicking myself about those kind of things,” McVay said. “I’d be lying to you if I said I haven’t questioned the decision-making on that last play over and over in my head about what could have been another option.”
In the locker room after the game, Nacua was in good spirits while talking with reporters. He had previously gone to the injury tent during the game to be checked for a concussion, but he was cleared and able to return and finish off his 14-reception, 170-total-yards performance.
McVay said he expects Nacua to be out at least a month, but did not want to put a firm timeline on his return from the two injuries.
“When these things happen, the first thing is that you feel for the players,” McVay said. “It’s challenging, but it’s an opportunity for us to adjust and adapt. And the game’s going to be played.”
Nacua, who has 70 catches this year for 715 yards and four touchdowns, will be the second All-Pro receiver that the Rams have had to put on injured reserve this season. Davante Adams is still recovering from a ruptured tendon in his hamstring that required clean-out surgery.
While McVay has gotten good progress reports on Adams’ rehab, he did not have an update on when he expects the 33-year-old to return to game action. McVay has previously said that he expects Adams back closer to the early side of the initial 6-10 week return timeline. Adams has already missed three games with the injury.
So in the meantime, the Rams have to find some kind of answer at receiver, and pass catcher as a whole.
Rams receivers not named Nacua or Adams have accounted for a total of 20 catches this season for 273 yards. Meanwhile, the tight end room has battled through a series of injuries, with Terrance Ferguson expected to miss at least two more weeks after pulling his hamstring in practice in his first week back after going on injured reserve for an ankle injury.
McVay had previously ruled out looking to add to the receiver room via trade or free agency as recently as last week, but he said the circumstances had changed following Nacua’s injury, especially with the trade deadline on Tuesday.
“I think you got to look at all avenues to try to be able to solve some of the issues or situations or scenarios that have come up,” McVay said. “I would never rule it out. As soon as I get done with you guys, that’ll really represent and that’s really what this morning has entailed as well, kind of putting our heads together and figuring out just the semantics of what is the [active roster], what does our practice squad look like, how does that shape the different areas of our football team?”
McVay said that any decision on a potential new receiver would have just as much to do with scheme fit and ability to pick up the offense as it would with talent.
Meanwhile, the expectation is that rookie sixth-round pick C.J. Daniels will be thrust into a bigger role after being inactive for the first six games of the season.
“He is a guy that, no question about it, will get an opportunity to play more snaps moving forward,” McVay said. “I think if you asked a lot of our DBs about him, they’d give you a bunch of positive feedback because of the looks, the challenges.”
Unfortunately for the Rams, Nacua was not the only player to suffer an injury on Sunday.
Left guard Steve Avila is expected to be out several weeks after re-aggravating a hamstring injury that he suffered in Week 8 against the Chargers. While McVay did not have a definitive timeline on his return, he said the Rams are hoping to keep him off injured reserve because of some roster mechanics issues.
Teams can only return eight players from injured reserve each season, and the Rams have already brought back three players, not including Ferguson, who has until Nov. 24 to be added to the active roster after he returned to practice Nov. 4.
“We’re getting to be where that number is getting so high that we’re going to run out of those eight to be able to return,” McVay said. “That’s not something that we’re trying to do right now.”
McVay said he was happy with Beaux Limmer’s play after Avila left the Washington game, and that he feels good about the Rams’ interior line depth to sustain in Avila’s absence.
“I thought Beaux came in and did a really good job against a variety of fronts and movements that he got challenged with yesterday,” McVay said.